Sizzling Nights with Dr. Off-Limits (15 page)

Was that why she'd cried all the time? He'd thought her depressed. Had she really been suffering from extreme pregnancy hormone mood changes?

His short spark of anger dissipated. “I meant, how did our baby die?”

She paced across the room, paused, her back to him. “I started bleeding and it wouldn't stop. The obstetrician at the emergency room said my hormones were really out of line, that it had only been a matter of time before I miscarried as my body was rejecting the pregnancy. There was nothing they could do.”

“How far along were you?”

“Five months.”

Lucas's feet went out from under him and he sank onto the sofa. Five months. His wife had been five months pregnant and he hadn't known.

Five months. How was that even possible?

Sure, he'd stopped having sex with her for fear she'd get pregnant, but shouldn't he have noticed something different? Or had he been so busy trying not to look at her that he'd failed to see the obvious?

“I didn't know.”

“I never thought you did. Although I could see the difference in my belly, I hadn't gained any weight overall. When dressed, it was easy to hide.”

Why hadn't she gained weight? Perhaps the stress of a strained marriage? Perhaps all the tears she'd cried?

“I'm sorry, Emily.” There he went apologizing again. “I should have been there.”

She didn't correct him. Nor should she. He should have been by her side in that emergency room.

“Were you alone when it happened?”

“I went to my parents after I moved out of our apartment.” She shook her head. “I'd felt bad all week but thought it was from what was going on between you and me. When I started gushing blood, my mother called the ambulance. She stayed with me.”

“She probably hates me.”

“You're not her favorite person.”

“I imagine not.” He tried to let it sink in. Had Emily not miscarried, he'd be a father. He'd have a five-year-old kid. Would she have told him if she hadn't miscarried?

“I had to threaten my mother that I'd never speak to her again to keep her from going to give you a piece of her mind.”

“I wish she had.” Because then he would have known.

Then what? What would he have done differently? Would he have gone to Emily and comforted her?

“The last thing I wanted was more drama.”

Which explained why she'd just accepted his ridiculous divorce papers that he'd expected her to show up at their apartment and throw back in his face. Despite her depression, he'd expected her to fight for their marriage, to fight for him. When she hadn't and he'd realized she wasn't going to, he'd felt a devastation unlike any he'd ever known. Pride had helped him replace hurt with anger.

As with much of their marriage, he'd reacted on hot emotion when he'd filed for divorce, but, as stupid as he'd been, he'd never expected their marriage to end. He'd thought receiving the divorce papers would send Emily home, would snap her out of whatever was bothering her, would cause her to admit she had a problem and needed help. Instead, she'd signed the papers, rid her life of him and never looked back. She'd not wanted anything else from him. She'd just wanted to forget he'd ever been a part of her life and she'd moved on as if he'd never existed in her world.

He'd been the one with a problem, the one who'd needed help.

She'd given birth to a five-month-old baby.

“Did we have a son or a daughter?”

She hesitated and for a moment he wondered if she was going to tell him anything more, but then she sighed and looked so gutted his insides twisted.

“A daughter.”

He'd had a daughter. A daughter whom he'd never gotten to see or hold or even fantasize about.

“They wouldn't let me see her,” Emily said, her tortured words invading his thoughts, making him ache with the pain he heard in her voice.

“I wanted to,” she continued. “I wanted to hold her, but they wouldn't let me.”

Lucas got off the sofa, went to Emily and wrapped his arms around her while she cried. He shed tears of his own.

“You're a much better person than I am,” he told her long minutes later.

Not speaking, she shook her head. “I've held that in for so long. I can't believe I told you.”

“You should have told me long ago.”

“Why? What good can come out of you knowing? Nothing.”

“At least now I understand why you signed the divorce papers.”

“You told me to leave, then sent me divorce papers. Did you think I wouldn't sign them?”

“In the middle of an argument, I told you that if you were that unhappy being married to me, you should leave. You left.”

She closed her eyes. “How could I stay when you wanted me to leave?”

“I never wanted you to leave.” He disentangled himself from where he held her. He needed to process the things that had happened, the things he'd learned and how he felt about those things, how he felt about Emily, about himself, about the fact he'd had a child he never knew about. “I just couldn't be what you needed me to be at that point in my life. You were crying all the time, so moody, I felt I could never do anything right, could never make you happy. Between my fellowship, my mom's grief over my grandmother's death, the financial constraints you insisted upon, the stress of wanting to be a good husband, I just wasn't coping well. When, between crying bouts, you started talking about wanting a baby, I choked. I already felt like a failure. How was I supposed to add in daddy duties?”

“I guess it's a good thing you never had to.”

“No, Emily, that isn't a good thing. Not at all. Had you been upfront and told me you were pregnant, I would have wanted our baby.”

“How could I have told you I was pregnant? Your parents were already accusing me of being a gold digger, warning you that I'd get pregnant on purpose. You were drifting further and further away from me and the more I tried to pull you back, the further away you slipped.”

“I wasn't slipping away, Emily. I was staying away because I didn't want to make you pregnant.”

She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“I was afraid you'd intentionally get pregnant.”

“I'd never have done that.”

“I know that. Now. At the time, I was stressed and was hearing from all sides how I'd rushed into marriage and how you'd be quick to want to start a family so you'd have a permanent tie to my family's wealth.”

“I never wanted money from you.”

“No, you never did.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I'm sorry, Emily. For making you so sad, for everything I ever did wrong.”

“Me, too.”

Lucas wasn't sure how long he stood at Emily's window, staring down at the street below. When he turned, she sat on the sofa, watching him with her red-rimmed eyes.

He'd done that. He'd put that deep hurt inside her. He'd pushed her away and she'd lost his baby. No wonder she'd changed hospitals to get away from him. No wonder she'd not wanted anything to do with him when he'd first shown up at Children's.

He'd hurt her in ways that couldn't be easily forgotten, couldn't readily be moved beyond. The fact that she hadn't told him she was pregnant, that she'd kept something so significant from him during their marriage, caused pain he'd not easily forget or move beyond, either.

Tonight, he needed to hurt, though, to feel the pain and let it cut at his very soul while he came to grips with the past, with the loss of a baby daughter he'd not even known about.

Emily had said too much had happened for them to ever have a second chance. He hadn't understood that before.

Now he did.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

E
MILY
POKED
HER
HEAD
into her patient's room. Her heart swelled at what she saw.

Cassie Bellows awake and, although still groggy and sleeping more often than not, holding her mother's hand.

“How's she doing this morning?”

Cassie's mother smiled. “She woke up several times during the night but seems a little stronger each time she wakes up.”

“That's what the night nurse told me during report. She said Cassie was doing great.”

The girl's mother nodded. “Dr. Cain says everything went as perfectly as it possibly could have when he removed the tumor. Now we just have to wait and see how successful the surgery really was or wasn't.”

Dr. Cain. A man Emily hadn't seen for three days.

Three days in which he'd just disappeared from her life.

But not life in general because he'd been at the hospital each day, had done his rounds, had transferred Jenny, who was steadily improving, to the orthopedic surgical floor for further correction of her limb injuries. He'd scheduled Cassie for surgery and performed the surgical excision of her tumor early the day before.

Cassie had done great. Emily had checked on the child before she'd gone home from her shift but had made sure to carefully avoid Lucas.

If he didn't want to see her, she wouldn't put herself in his path. Not intentionally.

She didn't fool herself that she'd be able to avoid him altogether, not with them working at the same hospital. She'd toyed with updating her résumé but had nixed the idea. She loved her job at Children's and wasn't leaving. If her being there made him uncomfortable, he could leave. He'd said he would if that was what she wanted. Was it? No, she wanted him to have the opportunity to pursue his dreams, to do his research. Children's provided him with that opportunity.

They were both better off without each other.

If only she could convince herself of that.

She had five years ago. She'd convinced herself that he was a horrible person who hadn't wanted her or their baby.

That belief had been a balm for her pain and helped her move forward.

This time she knew better. She knew that her pregnancy hormones had prevented rational thought, that she'd blamed him for things that had perhaps been as much her fault as his.

Lucas was a good man, a good doctor. They'd both been immature and had made mistakes then and now.

Not that telling him about their baby was a mistake. The mistake had been not telling him immediately when she started suspecting she might be pregnant all those years ago, letting her hormones, and fear of what others thought, of what he might think, drive her thoughts to irrational limits.

But he'd already started acting so distant and somehow she'd known he wouldn't be happy with her news even before she'd started hinting about a baby. Still, she should have told him.

“Her vitals are looking really good,” she told Mrs. Bellows, knowing the woman was waiting for a response of some type.

The woman nodded. Emily checked Cassie's reflexes, pleased when each one responded appropriately.

“Her neuro check is right on target.”

Cassie's eyes tracked everything Emily did as she quickly assessed her patient. That the girl's eyes didn't leave hers was a great sign.

By the time Emily finished her examination, Cassie had dozed back off.

Mrs. Bellows bent over the bed to kiss Cassie's cheek. “Dr. Cain said he'd wean her off the ventilator today if she continued to hold her own.”

Dr. Cain. Dr. Cain. Dr. Cain. Maybe Emily would have to rethink the whole staying at Children's thing. Listening to his patients and their families extol his virtues didn't rank high on her list of things to do if she wanted to keep her sanity.

Not that she didn't understand Mrs. Bellows's admiration of Lucas. Emily did. He'd saved Cassie's life when he'd stopped the bleed and he'd given them hope that Cassie was going to be okay when he'd removed the brain tumor.

“She is. I bet he'll be by this morning and give the order for the ventilator to be discontinued. My guess is that he only left it in overnight as an extra precaution.”

The woman nodded, then glanced down at where her hand was laced with Cassie's.

“She squeezes my hand in response to my questions,” the woman assured her, sounding ecstatic by the simple communication.

Emily smiled. A mother's love was a beautiful thing. Something she'd never allowed herself to really embrace. Not before telling Lucas about their baby. She had been a mother. She had loved her baby.

Telling Lucas about their daughter had healed areas of her heart she'd thought incurable.

“I asked if she knew who I was and she gave me the funniest look and tried to nod her head, then squeezed my hand. I asked her to squeeze it twice if she knew.” Mrs. Bellows's voice choked up. “She squeezed it twice.”

Feeling a little choked up herself, Emily patted where mother's and daughter's hands were linked. “She knows you.”

Emily was sure the child did. She'd seen the recognition and love in Cassie's eyes when she'd looked at her mother.

“She really didn't wake up much yesterday but has been awake several times during the night and this morning. She never lasts long, but each time I see her eyes, it's enough to reassure me that my baby girl is still in there. But we won't really know much until the ventilator is out and we see how she responds to simple tasks.”

Emily knew that it was possible Cassie would have reverted to the skill levels of a much younger child from the trauma of having part of her brain excised. Or that she might have suffered permanent damage and lost ability to stand, or walk, or talk, or so many things.

But so far every indication was that the girl's surgery had been a huge success. Emily prayed that trend continued.

“I'll be in and out checking on her, but if you need anything, don't hesitate to call me to her room.”

Emily turned to leave the room and found Lucas standing in the doorway. She wasn't sure how long he'd been watching her and Cassie's mother. She supposed it didn't really matter.

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

If he'd wanted to say something, the same thing must have happened, because he just stood there, staring at her as if trying to see inside her head.

Feeling a fool, she stood next to Cassie's bed as if paralyzed.

“Dr. Cain,” Mrs. Bellows greeted him, her face lighting up at seeing him. “You just missed Cassie being awake.”

“I'm sorry I missed her,” he answered, dragging his gaze from Emily's.

Dear Lord, he looked good. So good her heart ached.

He'd been her husband, her lover, her best friend, and now...now she supposed he was her colleague and that would be the only link they maintained.

Sadness filled her, but she wouldn't cry.

No, she'd focus on what she had shared with Lucas, celebrate the good, put the bad behind her and move forward with her life.

She could do this.

But at the moment, she didn't feel so strong.

She excused herself from the room and left Lucas to talk with Mrs. Bellows and check Cassie.

It was what she needed to do.

She had another patient she needed to check.

She had a heart she had to start trying to piece back together. Again.

* * *

Lucas stood outside Emily's apartment door, wondering if she'd let him in.

He assumed she'd gone home at the end of her shift, but maybe not. He'd seen her talking with Meghan prior to leaving the hospital. It was possible they'd gone somewhere.

If so, then what? He'd been sitting in his office, thinking about Emily, about the past, about the present, about life. He'd kept arriving at the same conclusion. The accumulation of the past made up the present and his future, and nothing in the past, present or future mattered without Emily.

He'd headed to her apartment, not sure what he was going to do, what he was going to say, just that he had to go to her.

He didn't have time to debate within himself further because Emily opened the door and stared at him.

“What do you want?”

“You.”

She grimaced. “Let's not do this. I can't handle it.”

“You want me to go?” Lucas's heart pounded in his chest. Was she sending him away before he'd even gotten started spilling his heart to her?

“If you come in, we both know what will happen.”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “I'm not here for sex.”

“But you just said...”

“You asked me what I wanted and I told you.”

The apartment door next to hers opened. A head peeked out to see who was in the hallway.

Lucas gave Emily's neighbor a reassuring smile. “Let me come in, Emily.”

Emily sighed, then stepped aside. She walked over to her sofa and sat down. She picked up a throw pillow, put it in her lap and toyed with the tasseled fringe. “Sit down, please.”

Lucas sat on the sofa but kept a good distance between them. He didn't want to be distracted by her nearness. He needed a clear head to tell her all the things he'd done the past couple of days.

“I checked on Cassie before I came here. She is doing great off the ventilator.”

“You could have texted to tell me that,” she said.

“I could have, but there's a lot more I need to tell you, Emily. Things that have nothing to do with Cassie or the hospital.”

She didn't say anything, just held on to the pillow in her lap and waited.

“I've done a lot of thinking over the past couple of days,” he continued. “I stayed at my parents' the other night after I left here, had breakfast with them and did a lot of talking.”

“You told them about our baby? Did they think I'd gotten pregnant on purpose to try to take your money?”

Lucas sighed. “I told them. Not once did either of them say anything about you getting pregnant on purpose, Emily. They couldn't help but question you in the beginning with how quickly we met and married. There are a lot of women who marry for money.”

“I didn't.”

“I know that.” He did know that. Maybe during prideful moments he'd let his thoughts go there, but he'd never believed Emily had married him for financial reasons. She'd loved him and had simply wanted to be his life partner. “My mother was devastated by the news you'd been pregnant and miscarried, that she may have played a role in you feeling you couldn't tell me. She wanted me to tell you how very sorry she is that the two of you never got close, that she wasn't there when you lost our baby.”

A sob broke free from Emily and she swiped her eyes, covered her mouth as she whispered, “I'm sorry.”

“You have no reason to be sorry, Emily. You didn't do anything wrong. My mother knows that. I know that.”

“That's not true. I did a lot of things wrong. I—”

“Emily,” he interrupted. “I need to finish telling you this while I can.”

She folded her shaking hands over the pillow. “Okay.”

“I wasn't scheduled with patients that morning, so after I left my parents, I went to your parents.”

Her head jerked around to him. “You went to my parents?” she gasped. “Why?”

How could he not have?

“I needed to talk to them.”

“About?”

“You. Me. Them. Our baby. Our marriage. Your depression. Everything.”

“And?”

“And I'm sorry I never took the time to know your parents when we were married. They are good people.”

Emily visually searched him over, possibly looking for battle wounds. There weren't any. At first he'd thought perhaps there would be, but Emily's parents had sat on their sofa, sour expressions in place, and listened to what he'd had to say.

When he'd left, Emily's father had shaken his hand, and her mother had reluctantly given him a hug. He could only hope this conversation went as well as that one.

“I can't believe you went to my parents' house.” She didn't say because he'd never been there before. She didn't have to. He'd been too busy to go with her to her parents' during their marriage. He'd barely juggled visiting his own, he'd justified to himself at the time.

“Why did you go there, Lucas?”

“Because there's no way for the air to be cleared between you and me without clearing the air with them.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “Why does any of this matter now?”

“It matters a great deal.”

She stared at him with confusion and devastation burning in her green eyes. “I don't understand.”

No, he supposed she didn't. Neither had her parents. Not until he'd told them how he'd never gotten over Emily, had never stopped caring for her, that he hadn't understood her depression, that he hoped to win her heart back, and wanted their blessing, that this time around he hoped to do things right. He'd told them he realized he didn't deserve forgiveness or second chances, but he prayed they'd give them anyway, that he prayed Emily would see beyond the past and see the man he was now, the man who had learned so many life lessons. He was sure there were many more he'd learn over the years, but he wanted Emily by his side as he faced each of those challenges.

He'd told her parents all that and more. Had told his parents that. Now he'd tell the only woman who'd ever stolen his heart.

“I love you, Emily.”

* * *

Emily's ears roared and her throat thickened to where breathing felt impossible. “What did you say?”

“I love you. I always have. I always will.”

Tears prickled her eyes. Why was he telling her this now? Why had he gone to her parents? Why was her heart swelling to where she thought it might burst free from her rib cage?

“I love you, too, Lucas.” She always had, always would. Once she'd told him the truth, her anger at him had eased, had given way to so much more, to the truth. She loved Lucas.